OK, Explain This To me Like I'm a Complete Idiot, Part 10: 2 for 1 Special . . .

1. How are Republicans/Libertarians perfectly OK with tax-skirting CEOs getting lottery salaries, perks and exit packages (if they resign) no matter how good or how bad a job they do or how ethically/unethically they conducted business, while at the same time viewing every poor person receiving benefits such as food stamps or UI as a "lazy freeloading system-gamer sponging off my tax dollers!!"??

Which leads to the next question:

2. Why is it that Republicans/Libertarians assert that the working/unemployed poor will be "motivated by lower wages to work harder and harder and maybe get a second job so they can get out of their bad situation" while at the same time stating "if you raised taxes on the rich, why should they be motivated to reinvest in their businesses and create more jobs if the gubmint's just going to take their hard-earned wealth!"??

2. I have another one...

How can repubs - libertarians be okay with the government collecting our DNA? That's what Walker is now putting forward...

I don't think the libertarians will like that and I wonder why Walker is pushing this now...does he want to lose the recall? Surely they must know part of their base i.e. the libertarians will hate this?

4. The first one is simple

A libertarian would say that shareholders are free to waste as much of their money on CEO salaries as they'd like. It's their money. On the other hand, when the government pays someone, they are spending taxpayers money.

As for the second one, I don't think I've seen people saying that cutting the wages of the poor motivates them to work harder. I thought that it was an almost universally agreed upon principal of economics that they more someone can earn doing something, the more likely they will be to do it. In fact, I thought that was the point of the EITC. I made low wage work pay more, so it would motivate people to work more.

5. Well, a libertarian would be wrong on both counts.

That's not "the CEO's money"; that's compensation that the board sets (usually, other CEOs and execs), which almost always comes at the cost of raising workers wages or hiring new ones, and which he gets no matter how good or bad a job he does. That's part of the package/contract. If the stock price goes down under his tenure, he still gets that money:

There not a lot of evidence that CEOs with pay packages larded with goodies do a better job than those with more modest paychecks. One study found that companies that allow personal use of corporate aircraft, for example, tend to underperform the stock market by about 4 percent a year, over the 10 years covered by the study. (Considering that the total return of the S&P 500 index averaged about 10 percent a year over the past eight decades, that's not small change.)

So how do these packages get approved? Corporate boards usually include a subset of the board called the compensation committee. The problem is that many corporate directors (so-called “inside” directors) report to the CEO. So their judgment is not exactly impartial. (“Hey, boss: remember that raise I asked you for? One reason I need it is because I’m staying late working on your generous pay package for next year.”)

When it comes to “outside” directors (people who work for other companies), some CEOs pack their boards with friends and cronies. So the board’s final decision is not always, well – above board. The Sarbannes-Oxley law took some steps to set rules on this, requiring certain new reporting procedures and holding directors personally liable if shareholders squawk.

(snip)

Unfortunately, there is little in the proposed rules that would empower shareholders to do anything when they believe a CEO is overpaid. When it comes time to vote for new corporate directors, the candidates almost always run unopposed. Challenging those incumbents is expensive, and your average outraged shareholder doesn’t have the time or money to take on the company’s hand-picked candidates. Rare examples of challenges are usually funded by large shareholders like disgruntled money managers or well-funded corporate “raiders.” So disclosure of outsized pay, by itself, will do little to strengthen the link between CEO pay and performance.

It's not so much "earned" money, it's negotiated money. I pretty much consider it legal robbery and Freepers defend this crap.

Secondly, some experts have estimated the cost of the Bewsh Tax Cuts for the rich to be @ $2 trillion dollars. If the wealthy are undertaxed (which they very much are) and are leaving billions on the table every year, who makes up that difference? You guessed it: Joe and Jane Q Sixpack's kids AND the social programs that help them.

11. Because CEO perks get passes from the strangest places.

Making it easier for them to get away with it.
Frustrating as hell - noting that these are BONUSES. Freaking BONUSES.

President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.
The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKGZkktzkAlA